Amtrak Proposes High Speed Rail to Take Riders from NY to Philly in 37 Minutes!

While officials on the west coast of the US solidify plans for their high speed rail line, the east coast is hoping not to be left behind. This week, Amtrak announced their hope to create a train line capable of running at 220mph to take New Yorkers to Philadelphia in just 37 minutes and to Boston and Washington DC in roughly an hour and a half (instead of the current 3 or 4 hours). Amtrak’s proposal also includes direct links to airports in major cities like Newark, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and White Plains, New York. The only snag in this master plan is the astronomical price tag of $151 billion, but considering the amount of time and fuel that could be saved, it may be well worth that figure.

In the US, railways are mostly funded by federal and state governments, which would need to contribute the lion’s share of the moneys to get the ball rolling on a project like this high speed rail. Unfortunately, with the government’s laundry list of programs to fund, $151 billion may seem like a very high cost, particularly when building a new high speed rail may not be top priority. While the project waits to see if government assistance is even possible, Amtrak does have the Acela Express train that reaches up to 150 mph but hasn’t been upgraded in nearly a decade. We agree with our friends at Treehugger, however, that the new railway would greatly increase travel and commerce between powerhouse east coast cities and create tons of jobs!

If the proposal is approved and funded, we can all look forward to zooming up and down the coast in 2040.

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2 Comments

lazyreader you do realize the northeast corridor is the only stretch of Amtrak that turns a profit. If amtrak failed, there were emergency plans to keep the northeast corridor in operation, since shutting it down would have a MASSIVE impact on business in that region. Moving all those trips onto plains or busses would be disastrous. I-95 which is the highway route for that region is already running at 200% capacity. If you took all train traffic and dumped it onto that roadway with busses you would literally cripple that region. expanding that roadway from DC to boston would cost 10X as much as high speed rail. You would have to build a double decker highway from DC to Boston since there is no room to buy a superhighway in one of the most densely populated places in the world.